For now.

Just watch our state get their panties in a bunch over civilian ownership/operation of drones. Because they can't tell the difference between a Mavic Mini and an MQ-9 Reaper.

Treating compulsive shopping, gambling, etc. :)

Meh. We've got those criss-crossing my neighborhood.

A 16" LNG pipeline? Now that's interesting.

Not so much. Only last year, we had a rash of meth addicts cutting down copper telephone lines for the copper. Major problem for people living out in the suburbs, since cell coverage is crap around here. During the Covid lockdowns, when they closed the public libraries, they found out how many people depended on their WiFi. WalMart and a few other retail outlets and malls put repeaters out in the parking lots. People would pull in, sit in their cars and get business done that way.

They only began pulling down the copper lines from my central office this summer. After spending years putting in fiber.

Back in the old days, critical service did not include typical residential or business customers. I have an antique CO annunciator panel with a couple of switches on the front that were used to drop all "Class B" and "Class C" lines. Reserving resources for inter-agency communications (police, fire, hospital).

It would not surprise me if this function had not been ported to cell service. Your phone might handshake with a tower. But if you are not on the critical service whitelist, you can't connect a call. To conserve backhaul resources.

Did you actually try to make a 9-1-1 call? That may still have worked.

Primarily needed to supply the loop power for POTS circuits. And usually enough capacity to get the diesel getsets started.

My telephone (and Internet) come in over fiber to the network terminator. Which has its own battery.

I can. The 5G cell sites in town here are little boxes up on about every third street light pole. There are no manholes or enclosures at the pole base. And I'd bet that they even tap their power off the street light circuit.

... I didn't switch my e-mail from mutt.

Possibly repairable with the application of doubler plates, depending on the extent of cracking. Replacing a wing spar may be uneconomical and result in the aircraft being written off. Such major structural repairs may be possible in other parts of an aircraft. But not so much the wings. The entire weight hangs from those.

I'll backpedal on the safety systems. To an extent. But not the connectivity. Let's get rid of that.

ADAS doesn't require connectivity. In fact, I'm not certain that 4G/5G stuff could ever be certified for life safety applications. But "connectivity"? Nope. Don't need it. Don't want it. No ads on my dashboard, please. And no location tracking systems to support them*.

There's not much to be done about that until someone develops a fentanyl sensor.

*Funny how this site will scream like stuck pigs about Flock cameras, but welcome tracking and driver monitoring cameras (facial recognition) into their cars. Demand it, even. It's pretty easy to deduce that all this tracking garbage is just an ongoing revenue stream for the auto manufacturers in exchange for handing your location over to Big Data. And the police. Its defenders are most likely employees of the aforementioned. Or app developers to support them.

The best possible outcome would be for everyone to release cars with no connectivity or automated driving systems.

We have this handy hand crank to power up your RAM during the cold winters.

[Sob]

It's not about where the workers reside. It's about where the corporation has its HQ.

In Seattle. Jay-walking laws don't apply to fentanyl users.